Robert Yates among five to be inducted into NASCAR Hall of Fame on Friday
CHARLOTTE — Although three living candidates are scheduled to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Friday night, the biggest emotional response from those in attendance could be for one who won’t be there.
Team owner and engine builder Robert Yates, whose NASCAR career stretched across four decades, died of liver cancer Oct. 2 last year, five months after learning that he had been elected to the hall. His last goal was to live to attend the induction ceremony.
Yates wrote an acceptance speech last year, and it will be used in a video to be played during Friday’s ceremony.
Also scheduled to be inducted at the Charlotte Convention Center are crew chief Ray Evernham, broadcaster Ken Squier, Camping World Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. and the late Red Byron, who won the first championship in what is now the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 1949.
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Yates’ career was diverse. After working at the giant Holman-Moody Ford team, he built engines for numerous winning drivers, including Bobby Allison and Richard Petty. A Yates engine carried Petty to his record 200th Cup victory.
Yates moved into team ownership and built a championship organization that fielded cars for Davey Allison, Dale Jarrett, Ernie Irvan and Ricky Rudd. His legacy continues at Roush-Yates Engines, led by his son, Doug.
Doug Yates called his father’s hall election “the most gratifying moment of his whole career.”
Evernham won three Cup championships as crew chief for driver Jeff Gordon in the 1990s and later owned a Dodge Cup team. He is credited with revolutionizing the approach to work on pit road during races, largely by hiring specialized pit crew members with backgrounds in sports such as football and hockey.
Hornaday is the first Truck Series champion to be elected to the hall. He won four Truck titles and 51 races in NASCAR’s No. 3 series. He also won four races in the Xfinity Series.
Robert “Red” Byron won NASCAR’s first championship — in the Modified Series — in 1948 and then tacked on another title the next season as NASCAR started what would become the Cup Series for “strictly stock” cars.
Byron, who died in 1960 at the age of 45, suffered a serious leg injury while serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He raced after the war using a steel brace that he attached to the clutch pedal of his cars.
Squier is a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting of motorsports events. His most famous call occurred at the finish of the 1979 Daytona 500, an event marked by a last-lap crash involving Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison and a subsequent fight that involved Yarborough, Donnie Allison and Allison’s brother, Bobby. Richard Petty won the race.
The hall of fame is located in downtown Charlotte.